India’s ‘Plastic Man’ Turns Litter Into Paved Roads

A professor of chemistry in Madurai, India believes the mounds of trash lining the roads and fields to be a “wonderful resource” for his country.

The innovator created a method for building roads by transforming common plastic litter—not only thicker acrylics and bottles but also grocery bags and wrappers—into a substitute for bitumen in asphalt.

Rajagopalan Vasudevan’s become known as Plastic Man and travels throughout India instructing engineers how to apply it. To date, more than 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) of plastic roads have been laid in at least 11 states.